#like they have so many gay friends OBJECTIVELY I KNOW THIS IS A NON ISSUE LOL

[naturecalls111]

on liking girls

[thorraborinn]

I want to explain how religious organizations in Iceland work because I keep seeing some incorrect information about Ásatrúarfélagið having a policy of prohibiting Americans from joining. I'm American and I have been a member before, so that obviously can't be true.

In Iceland, religious organizations (and "life-view" organizations) are regulated by the government to a degree that the American mind cannot comprehend. Even the Catholic church is subject to the state's bureaucracy if it wants to operate within Iceland. When a church wants to know who its members are, it needs to get that information from the government. There's a link on Ásatrúarfélag's website that says "Want to join Ásatrúarfélagið? Click here." and it's a link to the same government website you use to register a change of address. If you want to join, take it up with the government.

Ásatrúarfélagið does not and can not set policies about who can join. It has no ability to regulate its membership. The real thing that membership in a religious organization actually is, that everything else is an extension of, is checking a box on a government form which tells the government where to dedicate a portion of the money you pay in taxes. How they feel about this is irrelevant and I doubt they've said much if anything about it.

Obviously, the state can't regulate people's actual beliefs and there's nothing stopping you from finding a bunch of friends and participating in your own customs without integrating into the state bureaucracy, but Ásatrúarfélagið sought recognition and therefore integration into this system half a century ago.

This is the same for Catholics in Iceland, Muslims in Iceland, secular humanists in Iceland, dialectical materialists in Iceland, etc.

What the Icelandic mind is correspondingly unable to comprehend is why an American would want to join. What do you think you get out of membership? Ability to attend rituals? As long as you can get to Iceland, you already have that, because their rituals are already open to everyone (sometimes requiring pre-registration if there's a limited number of seats, and sometimes there's a cover charge, but there are also many free outdoor public events). For the vast majority of members, the only difference between being a member and a non-member is that you get a calendar and newsletter in the mail periodically, which is in Icelandic. I can't pretend to speak for org members but my impression is that many think the only reason non-locals would want to join is the weird idealization that people subject Icelanders to, this kind of second-hand nationalism common to heathens that strips Icelanders of their actual humanity and turns them into a novelty.

What I think people might be thinking of is that years ago when the hof (temple) was in the news a lot, they were getting threatening messages from international heathens, mostly folkish ones objecting to their stances on issues like gay marriage and racial non-discrimination; and some from heathens who think Ásatrúarfélagið should have to conduct animal sacrifice (not sure what the overlap is between them and folkish but I imagine it's substantial). There were discussions about how to protect the hof when it was complete. But it's still not complete (though yeah, parts of it are usable now) and Covid-19 both delayed its completion and just otherwise made that discussion less urgent. I'm not sure where they landed on that or if they did come to a conclusion. But it's weird that international people would feel entitled to it anyway. The Icelanders didn't ask to be the custodians of an international pilgrimage site and they shouldn't be obligated to provide one.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Lisa Selin Davis

Published: Jul 5, 2023

“Have you seen the latest study?” the psychologist asked me. 

I had called Dr. Ken Zucker, a man who had spent decades working with children and young people with gender dysphoria, to talk to him about the history of that diagnosis. I wanted to know who got to decide when something was a variation versus a deviation; who got to decide when a way of being gendered in the world was abnormal, and required treatment. 

By this time, I’d been writing about gender issues full time for about four years, since I published an op-ed in The New York Times about people assuming my masculine daughter was transgender and required social transition. Why, I asked, would we create so much meaning from a child rejecting the gender role associated with her sex? Isn���t that what GenX kids like me, reared with the soundtrack of Free to Be, You and Me, were raised to do?

The op-ed was supported by many, but vociferously objected to by some who accused me of transphobia. I was shocked and stung by that reaction. In the piece I said that I supported trans kids, but wanted to encourage children to explore both sides of the pink/blue divide without it reflecting on their identities—how could that be hateful? I reached out to some of my detractors to ask them to explain their views to me, and perhaps because I put in the subject line “What I got wrong,” some of them—including very prominent trans activists—agreed to do so.

I won’t name him, but one person who’d written a response to my piece, which had also gone viral, was a lawyer for an influential non-profit law group. He spent an hour-and-a-half at a coffee shop in the Financial District explaining to me that nuanced arguments like mine were dangerous. Deviating from the script, he said, always provided fodder for the right wing that wanted to oppress trans people and take away their rights and healthcare. Indeed, to my shock, Breitbart had written about my piece as an example of “slamming transgender ideology.” And Laura Ingraham’s people had reached out to me to appear on her show, even though I was clearly a full-throttle liberal. This confused and frightened me. I didn’t want to play for the other team. 

Others reached out to me, too, including a healthcare lawyer, and lesbian, who lived in my neighborhood. We met for coffee, and she explained the issue from her point of view: pharmaceutical companies were conducting experiments on gay kids. Though it sounded too wild to be true, ringing of conspiracy theory, her idea dislodged some doubt inside me. Two years before, a friend of mine had made a documentary about trans kids. I’d said to her at the time, “Why do they all seem gay?”

I powered through my doubts, writing a book about gender nonconforming girls, trying to represent diverse points of view in the project. Well, some diverse points of view. My friend who’d written a book about trans teens five years before told me that I should never mention detransitioners; I’m sad to say I took this advice to heart. It was too dangerous for trans people, she said, and I didn’t want to make life any worse for people struggling to be understood and accepted. 

Still, I questioned why so many of the people identifying as trans seemed to be rooting their identities in stereotypes. I was nuanced, but not in a way that could excite Tucker Carlson. I knew, like so many people, that something was wrong with the increasingly pervasive narrative about trans kids. I just didn’t have the knowledge and the language to articulate it. (This is something many people identifying as trans also say: they had a feeling. They didn’t have information, or a name.)

Then, almost a year after my book was published, I called Dr. Zucker. He showed me the study, and it was then I knew I’d allowed myself to be captured. The study followed young boys with gender dysphoria over a 15-year period. Almost 90 percent of boys desisted during or after puberty—that is, their gender dysphoria subsided. And almost 70 percent of them were bisexual or gay. Left alone, and not socially transitioned, almost all young kids now labeled as trans would not grow up to identify that way, and most would be same-sex attracted. The only time the media mentions this and the other studies with similar results is to discount them. Kids are routinely taught that gender and sexuality are not connected, but in fact, they are deeply intertwined.

From that moment of awakening, I allowed myself to look at the mountains of disruptive evidence that I had blinded myself to in years before. Once I saw it, I couldn’t look away. The mainstream media narrative about conversion therapy, detransitioners, puberty blockers, trans kids—it’s all deeply distorted and leaves out information that every person—especially every gender dysphoric kid and parent of one—deserves to know. 

One reason so many gay and lesbian adults are concerned about the medical treatment of gender dysphoric youth is that they experienced that condition as children. Like so many, they grew out of it, and later identified as gay. There is overlap between childhood GD, and childhood gender nonconformity, and later homosexuality; thus they see these medical interventions as a kind of conversion therapy. The media and medical community’s refusal to acknowledge that has left a generation misinformed. The left wing, and especially the left and center press, have gotten this story very, very wrong.

Perhaps the most shocking thing I learned is that the medical protocol used to “liberate” trans kids is the same protocol once used to treat or cure homosexuality, and still used to chemically castrate sex offenders. What if every brochure, every children’s hospital gender clinic website, every activist organization, led with that fact? Would more of us wake up, and faster? Would more of us covert to be on the side of evidence, truth, and nuance, rather than thought-terminating clichés? 

Let’s find out, shall we? Let’s inform people on the left properly, and see if we can push past the culture war to do what’s best for kids.

==

More successful at "fixing" gay kids than the Xian Right ever was.

[voidingintotheshout]

The view from my window.

If anybody needs to hear it, one of the more powerful things that I’ve allowed myself is “I know it’s a problem, but I’m not dealing with it right now.”

Hassan Minaj has a bit in one of his specials about being approached in the mosque by a white Muslim that, even as a child, he was sure was a federal agent in clumsy disguise. He later confirmed this when the “Brother” was declassified years later. I can tend to be very anxious so I got it into my head that this random dude who occasionally goes to Muslim meet ups might be a fed. The Geopolitical issues around Muslims being both victims and villains has brought out the dark side of my anxiety.

I know that it’s not good for me to try to “solve” these mysteries, and so I’m allowing myself the freedom to just acknowledge that I might have someone in my life that might be manipulating me towards their own ends, and I’m choosing to not care. I can’t prove anything and this is how people go crazy and I don’t want to go crazy. I just need to focus on my faith and I need to stop worrying about trying to “be on the right side of history.” I need to stop worrying about the fact that an Imam I respect might be both homophobic and a closet bisexual.  I need to stop worrying about  whether being a gay Muslim makes me stupid, naïve, or supporting some kind of “evil empire”.

I don’t like to mask off on here because it’s very depressing when I expose myself completely vulnerably and all of my deepest, darkest fears, and it gets like three notes. I’m not doing it for attention. It’s just annoying when I don’t get any at all if that makes any sense.

My point is that one of the more powerful things that I can do with mental health issues is what I called Blindspot Technique. It’s basically that you give yourself a percentage of objectivity that you have in a situation and your blind spot is the percentage that you need to adjust to compensate for what issue or trauma you have, and its power to distort your objectivity. Like if you’re very very sensitive to anyone saying anything negative about your body/weight, maybe you need to adjust down how sure you are that something was intended as insulting/offensive by maybe 30% or 40%. Maybe you’re having dinner with a friend who has never been a jerk to you in the past and you were at their place and they ask if you want some vegetables for dinner. If when you are in the heat of your issue, you are 60 to 70% sure that was a passive aggressive comment but you adjust it down by 30% and now you’re less than 50% sure. Probably best to let it go. Maybe in hindsight you put together the pieces that they just came back from a farmer’s market and so vegetables were on their mind and it was nothing about you. That’s the Blindspot Technique.

Anyway, related to my issue is that I need to accept that my blind spot in terms of objectivity on this is so high I can’t reasonably be able to tell what is my issue taking control and what is the objective truth. Like, a few days ago the synagogue near my house had a gay pride celebration get together. This happened a few days after my Imam told me that identifying as gay is “cursed” and tried to talk me out of identifying as gay at all because I’m asexual. I then saw that gay pride mixer at a synagogue, and I just felt this overwhelming ache. That I wish I believed in Judaism, so that I could be part of a religion that may be more persecuted, but at least is supportive of LGBT people. It just made me so frustrated and tired. 

Mostly, it made me frustrated and tired because the honest truth is that I believe in Islam with all of my heart and soul. And I have a personal relationship with Allah that means so much to me and my religious practices makes me happier and healthier and more confident to do so many things that I would’ve never been able to do and it’s frustrating that the people at the mosque will never truly know who I am. And also that many of my non-religious gay friends will never truly understand the Muslim side of me. I might never find a lot of my people and that sucks. I may be drawn towards institutions that make it impossible for me to be fully out because I have internalized homophobia. I don’t know. I just know that I don’t have the clarity to figure that out so I am going to take my Imam’s advice and not worry about it because in his words: I’m driving myself crazy trying to figure out something that I can’t figure out. I need to just put my head down and focus on the five pillars and not really worry about the rest of it. 

Thanks for reading.

Oh, and as for the brother, who might be a fed, I’m not concerned because he’s probably just a kindly pharmacist, who happens to be impossibly good-looking, blonde haired and blue-eyed, and dressed like he just came off the runway of the fashion show. He’s also incredibly successful and charming, and seems to be the exact type of person that would appeal to Muslims. I may have gender dysphoria and daddy issues but I’m not gonna let anyone make me say things that I don’t believe. If he actually started a conversation about any of that jihadist bullshit, I would tell him to go fuck himself. Hurting innocent people for your beliefs is for brutal monsters who have lost their humanity. 

[southbound-in-the-sky]

ON HEARTSTOPPER

Ever since the show's release, there are memes going around on Twitter, with queer people assigning a piece of LGBTQ+ media they grew up with as their Heartstopper. Luckily for me, and for other queer kids and teenagers, my Heartstopper is, well, Heartstopper. 

The comic was first published on Tumblr back in 2016 but the characters of Nick and Charlie were much, much older, appearing in Alice Oseman's debut YA novel Solitaire. I didn't know why and how I stumbled upon Heartstopper, but I have been reading a lot of LGBTQ-themed young adult novels at that point and my then-newfound love of graphic novels was already introduced by N.D. Stevenson's Nimona. It had a lot of things that appealed to me – teenage kids, a sensetive look at queerness, fast-paced plot and dialogue – and so I downloaded it and read it. It was a moment of a lifetime. 

By then, I probably never realized that it was integral to my discovery of my identity. I was only at Volume 1, just a short narrative of Nick and Charlie's friendship until they inevitably kissed at the end. But it made me feel warm and happy. I never really knew exactly when I started reading it. I looked through the downloaded files on my phone and discovered I saved the first volume just a week before my fifteenth birthday. 

At that point, I was starting to come to terms with the fact that I liked girls. I had a crush on this girl a year or so before I started reading Heartstopper, but I never realized what the feeling was until the new school year came. It was terrifying – it kept me up at night, it made me wonder if the signs have been there all along, it made me realize that the fluttering heat in your stomach and the sheer willingness to make your friend happy are not normal experiences of a stone-cold heterosexual.

I found company in books (I was always a massive bookworm). I watched coming-out videos on YouTube. I talked, in some depth, about queerness with my friends. I listened to Hayley Kiyoko, Troye Sivan, King Princess. I had a standard queer realization – cute girl sits next to me, I realize that my identity wasn't I thought it was, I blast Girls Like Girls to myself when I'm alone. 

And Heartstopper showed all of that -- all the messy, confusing, and hopeful parts of queer discovery.

Nick thought he was straight his whole life – until he got sat next to openly gay, anxious Charlie. He took 'Am I Gay?' quizzes in the darkness of his bedroom. Nick struggled to fit in his idea of what queerness is until he managed to find his place and label his identity. 

I admit, I have only recently gotten aware of the parallels between my life and Heartstopper. I just realized how Heartstopper has been pivotal to my own coming-of-age, to my own anxieties about my identity, to my own Nick-like moments of discovering my sexuality. 

Heartstopper transcends beyond the 'boy-meets-boy' narrative that most YA queer novels have, even though the comic is marketed as such. I'm not saying that cute budding gay relationships are not important -- they are and more should be made -- but Heartstopper simply touched on many things and issues that I never anticipated. This was probably the first time I read about a non-white trans girl whose story is not marred by trauma and despair. There is a steady, lesbian couple who, although facing homophobia from peers and classmates, stood strong by each other until the very end. There are accepting teachers and parents and siblings. There is a nuanced discussion about mental health and eating disorders as the comic progresses. There are wholesome, fluffy plotlines -- I do, in fact, think that those are the lifeblood of the comic -- interpersed with realistic, hurtful scenarios, like an abusive closeted boyfriend, school bullies, homophobic family members, and struggles with one's own mental and physical health.

Heartstopper is brilliant, from an objective, comic-making perspective, but it's also emotionally impactful to the people who read it, especially LGBTQ+ children who are still having a difficult time in finding their own place in the world.

For something that tells experiences that are so specific -- Oseman grew up in southeast England, and Heartstopper is set in the same town, schools, and environment -- Heartstopper is massively relatable. I was -- still am -- a teenage kid who moved to a bustling city and studied in a large public high school in the Philippines. The Heartstopper kids studied in same-gendered private grammar schools in a relatively small town in England. Still, Tao's words to Charlie at the beginning of the comic and the show, telling him that Nick is straight and should let go of his hopeless crush on him, mirrored the same speech one of my friends gave to me when I told them of my own hopeless crush on another girl. Despite of the fact that our reasons of changing schools are obviously different, I empathized with Elle and the difficulty she faced in finding friends in a new environment. I found kinship in Nick in regards to working on his sexuality. I felt my feelings echoed when Darcy said she "liked girls a bit more than she's supposed to". Tara's feelings after coming out was painful and heart-achingly relatable. I even found Isaac's (one of the new characters Oseman made for the Netflix adaptation) occassional disinterest hilarious and 'me-coded', as the "kids" on Twitter would say.

Tao spoke to me the most, however. For someone who is the only cisgender and heterosexual member of their immediate friend group, Tao's uneasiness towards change and his brash overprotectiveness over his friends resonated to me a lot.

I think that's part of the beauty and charm of Heartstopper. Sometimes you directly related to one of the characters and the struggles they faced and the happiness they earned, but I personally found bits of myself scattered throughout the comic, the show, and the characters. It's oftentimes funny and, in a few moments, gutting -- I have heard homophobic tirades from older schoolmates against a friend of mine, and I had no idea what to do or what to say. Classic, Catholic homophobia still resides within our school, a different flavor than what was shown in Heartstopper, but still, as usual, brings the same element of hate and incites a wavering feeling of guilt and anger within queer students. Only just recently, I've read a homophobic speech from a batchmate of mine, hidden under the guise of preserving the sanctity of marriage.

Queerness can feel isolating. I have spoken about crushes and attractions on other girls with friends -- I even alluded to those on my own Twitter posts as I had gotten more comfortable -- but I have never really said anything about how alienating it is to be young and Filipino and queer. I'm sure a lot of my friends relate, but these discussions of our intermingling identities are a bit too deep for a bunch of kids who haven't even graduated high school yet. I went on a panic when my father was moments away on discovering that Girls Like Girls was playing on my phone. I felt a deep sense of melancholy as I watched my straight classmates just openly declare their crushes out loud, with no fear of weird stares from onlookers. Just around a year ago, I became withdrawn when a friend mentioned briefly that I liked girls online to complete strangers, when I was still insecure about my identity. And I had no one to talk to about those things.

Heartstopper is one of things that could save people from the feeling of loneliness. Authentic queer media is already so rare, and optimistic, teen-focused narratives are even rarer. It provides a grounded look on what it means to be a part of the LGBTQ+ community, where kids find strength within themselves and amongst their friends. 'Heartstopper' doesn't have a grandiose coming-out-moment with Nick. It doesn't have romantic gestures as big as the Eiffel Tower. It doesn't wallow in gritty events and let the characters be unnecessarily traumatized and hurt. Despite the fact that Heartstopper feels "smaller" than most teenage-oriented media, it still captures the overwhelming feeling of "every little thing is important when you're a teenager". Nick coming out to his mother as bisexual is a quiet and peaceful and loving affair, but it's also freeing and liberating and an important step into his acceptance of himself. Even quaint milkshake triple-dates are crucial events, especially when five out of the six attendees are not completely cis and heterosexual. Queer people being allowed to live silent, tranquil lives is, personally, one of the biggest and powerful statements Heartstopper has to offer.

I'm just idly waiting for the announcement of the season two renewal of 'Heartstopper', rewatching my favorite bits of the show. I am but a simple Heartstopper fan, anyway, and there are people who can provide more impactful analyses and anecdotes about the show and the comic. Still, it's a bit of a relief to talk about these feelings for a while, like I finally let myself exhale for a long, long time. Perhaps I needed a show like Heartstopper to finally accept these emotions within myself, to process the experiences that made me me these past few years.

Heartstopper is not the end-all, be-all beacon of queer representation in media -- it still centers around two British middle-class cis white boys -- but it definitely is a step in the right direction. There are still more stories to mold, to tell, to take flight. Positively speaking, we can only really go up from here -- and I hope those stories become the Heartstopper of other, younger queer kids.

I wrote this months ago (probably obvious because of the "season 2 waiting" bit LMAO since Heartstopper has been renewed for two more seasons) but I think it deserves to be posted!

[wearequeer-andwearehere]

hey!! this might be really long and if so i'm sorry for that, just trying to figure some stuff out.

okay basically, i'm a cis female and idk what my sexuality is. i've never been in a relationship, never had strong feelings for anyone, i've kissed three boys all in club settings, and i am so confused.

i think women are pretty?? and i love looking at them in a respectful, 'you're so gorgeous way', and men are good looking in a very different way to me but i still think i'm attracted to them

i'd like to kiss a girl but i can't ever see myself being in a relationship with one. and i don't know if that is some sort of internalised homophobia that i need to address or if it's just lack of experience, bc i don't think i can see myself with a guy. or maybe a can because it's what i see all around me???

and then the idea of being approached by a women in a sexual/romantic way scares me. is that just lack of experience??

and then i've had multiple people say to me 'are you sure you aren't gay?' and other things along those lines in a non-serious way, and if i am queer, i feel like i'm proving them right, and how did i not see or realise this sooner?? like i should've known right?? if everyone else did??

and a lot of my friends are queer and i feel really safe and accepted with them, so i don't know if i just want to be apart of that and am simply creating issues that aren't even there to begin with??

but then i've dreamt about being with women and straight women don't have them?? right?

then i tell myself i don't have to know right now, but it seems like everyone else but me knows. i'm 20 yrs old and i have NO idea about anything, and maybe that's okay? plus sexuality is fluid? and always changing so maybe i'll never know?

this was very messy and i'm sorry for that, but if you have any advice or thoughts, i'd be so grateful, i'm so overwhelmed right now. - a <3

Hi hi hi A!! Don’t worry about it long rambly asks are totally fine I’m here for u homie

Wow bro ur getting some action 😭 😭 can we switch places lmao

Oh wow you’re 20?? Okay disclaimer, I am a teenager haha so take everything I say with a pinch of salt bc I explored this whole sexuality thing when I was like 13, so we’ve had v different experiences but I’ll try my best to help u out bro I gotchu

What do you mean by “in a different way?” That can mean two things. Do you find women pretty objectively and men like ATTRACTIVE, or are you attracted to both men and women in different ways?

The whole being scared thing is, as my generation would say, a Big Mood. It could be either internalised homophobia or lack of experience or maybe you just don’t like women at all.

In terms of dreaming about being with women, that could mean anything or nothing. Dreams are just your subconscious putting everything in a blender and pouring the smoothie of hell into your sleep brain. It could mean you want to be with women or it could mean that shit in ur skull is just fucking around.

Honey you do NOT have to know right know. You’re twenty. That’s like. You’ve lived like 25% of your life, approximately. That’s jack shit. That’s not even the pass mark on most tests. You have got SO MUCH of your life left to live, you’ve got like decades and shit man, you don’t gotta have everything down right now. Talk to like ur parents or older friends and see *how much* life you have ahead of you.

It’s possible that this may also be contributing to that whole young adult early 20s “oh my god everyone else knows everything and i’m floundering” but honey trust me EVERYONE is floundering. Everyone is fucked. People seem put together but trust me dude we are all goddamn messes. You’re not alone. So many people are trying to figure themselves out, just like you.

Imma be fr thinking about this shit? Overrated. You’ll just think urself into another spiral and it’ll be the mental equivalent of doing like 19 buzzfeed quizzes titled “Am I Gay?” at 3:41am and wondering where ur life is going.

Just. Stop thinking. I know it’s hard trust me I have shitass anxiety and it’s so so hard to stop thinking but stop. Tell ur brain to stfu

And then just think of one thing. what makes you HAPPY?

Because that’s all that matters in the long run, doesn’t it?

Kiss a girl and see if it makes you happy. Kiss a guy and ask yourself the same thing.

If I were you, what I would personally do is just uhhh fuck around and find out? Go to a bunch of clubs and just be really slutty til things eventually make sense lmaoo

But once again that’s not for everyone so maybe just try and think about it. Does the idea of being with a girl make you happy? With a guy? Being single?

Also one idea might be for you to explore the aromantic label—you said you’ve never had strong feelings for anyone and it sounds like you might be aro. Look under my #aro questioning tag and check out these posts:

Remember, A, there’s no time limits on these things. There’s no deadlines. You’re young, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you, so take it slow and just be HAPPY and be true to yourself. Bend society to fit you—don’t bend yourself to fit labels, yknow what Im saying? Labels aren’t all that important at the end of the day. Just. Just *be.*

I hope I could help you out A!! Sending so so much love <3333 If you ever wanna talk again feel free to drop me an ask!! Have an awesome day <33

[flightlessnightingale]

On Lesbianism

I’ll state it at the top here, because many have not understood my stance. The purpose of this essay is not to say that Lesbian cannot mean “Female homosexual.” Rather, my objective is to show that Lesbian means more than that single definition suggests. Female Homosexuals are lesbians, unless they personally do not want to use that label. Now, on with the show: Lesbianism is not about gatekeeping, and I don’t want to have to keep convincing people that the movement popularized by someone who wrote a book full of lies and hate speech then immediately worked with Ronald Reagan is a bad movement. In the early ’70s, groups of what would now be called “gender critical” feminists threatened violence against many trans women who dared exist in women’s and lesbian spaces. For example, trans woman Beth Elliott, who was at the 1973 West Coast Lesbian Feminist Conference to perform with her lesbian band, was ridiculed onstage and had her existence protested. In 1979, radical feminist Janice Raymond, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, wrote the defining work of the TERF movement, “Transsexual Empire: The Making of the Shemale,” in which she argued that “transsexualism” should be “morally mandating it out of existence”—mainly by restricting access to transition care (a political position shared by the Trump administration). Soon after she wrote another paper, published for the government-funded, National Center for Healthcare Technology — and the Reagan administration cut off Medicare and private health insurance coverage for transition-related care.

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism is a fundamentally unsustainable ideology. Lesbianism is a fundamentally sustainable existence.

There used to be a lesbian bar or queer bar or gay bar in practically every small town — sometimes one of each. After surviving constant police raids, these queer spaces began closing even Before the AIDS epidemic. Because TERFs would take them over, kick out transfems and their friends. Suddenly, there weren’t enough local patrons to keep the bars open, because the majority had been kicked out. With America’s lack of public transportation, not enough people were coming from out of town either.

TERFs, even beyond that, were a fundamental part of the state apparatus that let AIDS kill millions.

For those who don’t know, Lesbian, from the time of Sappho of Lesbos to the about 1970′s, referred to someone who rejects the patriarchal hierarchy. It was not only a sexuality, but almost akin to a gender spectrum.

That changed in the 1970′s when TERFs co-opted 2nd Wave feminism, working with Ronald fucking Reagan to ban insurance for trans healthcare.

TERFs took over the narrative, the bars, the movement, and changed Lesbian from the most revolutionary and integral queer communal identity of 2 fucking THOUSAND years, from “Someone who rejects the patriarchal hierarchy” to “A woman with a vagina who’s sexually attracted to other women with vaginas”

How does this fit into the bi lesbian debate? As I said, Lesbian is more of a Gender Spectrum than anything else, it was used much in the same way that we use queer or genderqueer today.

And it’s intersectional too.

See, if you were to try to ascribe a rigid, biological, or localized model of an identity across multiple cultures, it will fail. It will exclude people who should not be excluded. ESPECIALLY Intersex people. That’s why “Two Spirit” isn’t something rigid- it is an umbrella term for the identities within over a dozen different cultures. In the next two sections, I have excerpts on Two-Spirit and Butch identity, to give a better idea of the linguistics of queer culture: This section on Two-Spirit comes from wikipedia, as it has the most links to further sources, I have linked all sources directly, though you can also access them from the Wikipedia page’s bibliography: Two-Spirit is a pan-Indian, umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people who fulfill a traditional ceremonial and social role that does not correlate to the western binary. [1] [2] [3] Created at the 1990 Indigenous lesbian and gay international gathering in Winnipeg, it was "specifically chosen to distinguish and distance Native American/First Nations people from non-Native peoples." [4] Criticism of Two-Spirit arises from 2 major points, 1. That it can exasperate the erasure of the traditional terms and identities of specific cultures.           a. Notice how this parallels criticisms of Gay being used as the umbrella           term for queer culture in general. 2. That it implies adherence to the Western binary; that Natives believe these individuals are "both male and female" [4]          a. Again, you’ll notice that this parallels my criticisms of the TERF definition of Lesbian, that tying LGBT+ identities to a rigid western gender binary does a disservice to LGBT+ people,—especially across cultures. “Two Spirit" wasn’t intended to be interchangeable with "LGBT Native American" or "Gay Indian"; [2] nor was it meant to replace traditional terms in Indigenous languages.  Rather, it was created to serve as a pan-Indian unifier. [1] [2] [4] —The term and identity of two-spirit "does not make sense" unless it is contextualized within a Native American or First Nations framework and traditional cultural understanding. [3] [10] [11] The ceremonial roles intended to be under the modern umbrella of two-spirit can vary widely, even among the Indigenous people who accept the English-language term. No one Native American/First Nations' culture's gender or sexuality categories apply to all, or even a majority of, these cultures. [4] [8] Butch: At the turn of the 20th century, the word “butch” meant “tough kid” or referred to a men’s haircut. It surfaced as a term used among women who identified as lesbians in the 1940s, but historians and scholars have struggled to identify exactly how or when it entered the queer lexicon. However it happened, "Butch” has come to mean a “lesbian of masculine appearance or behavior.” (I have heard that, though the words originate from French, Femme & Butch came into Lesbian culture from Latina lesbian culture, and if I find a good source for that I will share. If I had to guess, there may be some wonderful history to find of it in New Orleans—or somewhere similar.) Before “butch” became a term used by lesbians, there were other terms in the 1920s that described masculinity among queer women. According to the historian Lillian Faderman,“bull dagger” and “bull dyke” came out of the Black lesbian subculture of Harlem, where there were “mama” and “papa” relationships that looked like butch-femme partnerships. Performer Gladys Bentley epitomized this style with her men’s hats, ties and jackets. Women in same-sex relationships at this time didn’t yet use the word “lesbian” to describe themselves. Prison slang introduced the terms “daddy,” “husband,” and “top sargeant” into the working class lesbian subculture of the 1930s.  This lesbian history happened alongside Trans history, and often intersected, just as the Harlem renaissance had music at the forefront of black and lesbian (and trans!) culture, so too can trans musicians, actresses, and more be found all across history, and all across the US. Some of the earliest known trans musicians are Billy Tipton and Willmer “Little Ax” Broadnax—Both transmasculine musicians who hold an important place in not just queer history, but music history.

Lesbian isn’t rigid & biological, it’s social and personal, built up of community and self-determination.

And it has been for millennia.

So when people say that nonbinary lesbians aren’t lesbian, or asexual lesboromantics aren’t lesbian, or bisexual lesbians aren’t lesbian, it’s not if those things are technically true within the framework — It’s that those statements are working off a fundamentally claustrophobic, regressive, reductionist, Incorrect definition You’ll notice that whilst I have been able to give citations for TERFs, for Butch, and especially for Two-Spirit, there is little to say for Lesbianism. The chief reason for this is that lesbian history has been quite effectively erased-but it is not forgotten, and the anthropological work to recover what was lost is still ongoing. One of the primary issues is that so many who know or remember the history have so much trauma connected to "Lesbian” that they feel unable to reclaim it. Despite this trauma, just like the anthropological work, reclamation is ongoing.

Since Sappho, lesbian was someone who rejects the patriarchal hierarchy. For centuries, esbian wasn’t just a sexuality, it was intersectional community, kin to a gender spectrum, like today’s “queer”. When TERFs co-opted 2nd Wave feminism, they redefined Lesbian to “woman w/ a vag attracted to other women w/ vags”. So when you say “bi lesbians aren’t lesbian” it’s not whether that’s true within the framework, it’s that you’re working off a claustrophobic, regressive, and reductionist definition.

I want Feminism, Queerness, Lesbianism, to be fucking sustainable.

I wanna see happy trans and lesbian and queer kids in a green and blue fucking world some day.

I want them to be able to grow old in a world we made good.

[trutrustories]

Okay, this will be probably long and with many errors (my english isn´t very good) But I saw several posts here on Lokius tag, talking about this ship as result of gay fetish, and about non existing chemistry and  how this ship doesn´t make sense etc… And from what I understood there is tagged Lokius because of genuine interest to understand others point of view, so here is mine: I wil try to explain where my frustration comes from, and how I feel about Lokius, Sylkie, AND representation + some other things which I saw here somewhere. But first of all: I like Sylvie, I don´t hate sylkie shipers, and after so many years reading fan fictions, I don´t mind selfcest – I read weirder things. I have some issues with this ship (the mainlythe fact that it isn´t Lokius), but  this is not one of them. Also, I am not about to tell anyone, they shouldn´t ship sylkie.Ship whatever. And I LOVED the show as a whole. 

I just want to defend my standpoint, that Lokius does make sense, people shipping it does make sense and whether it will happen or not, (I don´t have my hopes very high, and I learned to be very skeptical in this regard ) it is more than just about crack ship, or fetish. I´m honestly blown away that people are still surprised that this ship became a thing :D First of all, let´s look at some romantic story telling and tropes: I mean the way they introduced them in the first two episodes set the tone for all series and how the heck this isn´t romantic? Somehow there are all these romantic tropes existing in a show. They´re just there. Just chilling between Loki and Mobius and large portion of audience can´t even see them. (and some of those tropes were used for Sylki as well, so you could actually see them side by side)

For example: 1) traveling to the apocalypsis 2) breaking law/rules for the other 3) literally changing for the better thanks to the other 4) arguing like old married couple 5) saying secrets, personal things to the other 6) sharing glances, touches, visibly being happy around each other - in case of Loki happier then we´ve ever seen him before 7) being completely themselfs around each other 8) One knowing everything (even the worst) about other and still accepting him completely 9) teasing, being comfortable and domestic around each other 10) one being literally enthusiastic FAN of the other 11) Mobius defending Loki whenever he has a chance 12) Freaking amnesia trope that they pulled of in the end??? (It could be different Mobius, but point is he suddenly doesn´t know him - and Loki knows more, in contrast with the beggining) 13) the jealousy in ep4 14) Misunderstanding - when Mobius thought Loki betrayed him and Loki (thanks to Ravonna) thought Mobius betrayed him... 15) witnessing death of the other and being absolutely broken afterwards 16) The goodbye hug with romantic music in the backround 17) Saving life of the one (even when it means problems for the other ) - like Mobius saved Loki´s ass at least three times when he was trying to stop others from pruning him. 18) sharing deep conversations about meanings of life, freedom and how it would be fun to make some chaos and ride that fucking jet ski!!! 19) Inspiring the other 20) looking for each other (Mobius didn´t believe for a second, that Loki would die in the Void and the way how in the last minutes of the series Loki run through all places they were together when he was looking for Mobius... and I could go on. Point is, even if they are not planning to make Lokius canon, all these things are used on a daily basis to describe romance in media and they are used here. On top of that it´s just very poetic and cute, that this drama queen and powerful god of Asgard who looked down on people would find his match in someone, who is so quiet, ordinary on the first sight, and basically is just human from 90s, who loves jet skis. Mobius can´t even fight. But is highly inteligent and he also happen to be as good manipulator, such as Loki himself. - That´s why they work together so well. Mobius sees right through him and once Loki understands that, he drops his evil persona. Almost nobody expected to ship it for real. But story itself and chemistry between them just made it probably the most exciting duo in the whole MCU. And I mean it genuinely. Third episode, even though it was beautiful and Sophie was great in it (and is literally dipped in bisexual colors), is the least favorite for a reason. And that reason being, there is no interaction between Loki and Mobius whatsoever. Lot´s of people though that series slowed down a bit. Even when in fact there was more action, then when we watched Loki and Mobius working at the TVA.

(and let´s just talk about evil!Mobius narative for a bit and how some people say he is manipulative and toxic for Loki: show itself explore heavy themes and one of them is in Loki´s line: no one bad is ever truly bad and no one good is ever truly good. And as a theme in a fictional world, it is working as it should, for the  story. When Loki and Mobius meet, one of them just killed lots of innocent people and destroyed almost whole city. The other one is a part of fascist organization – and in the beginning of the series they both believe what they´re doing is right. They´re both bad, they´re both good, they´re both broken. And they are changing with the help of the other.) From all reactions I watched - and there was many of them, lots of people actually didn´t see dynamic between Loki and Sylvie as romantic in the third episode. So it´s not like Sylvie and Loki had unequivocally love story right from the start.

The only difference is that lots of people won´t see romantic tropes, when it comes to two men in a mainstream show – show that isn´t primarily about relationships and problems that queer people has to face. Because in super hero story and science fiction we have to warn audience, that they´re about to watch two man in love, right? At this point It´s just frustrating really. There were many M/M dynamics that used similar story line, as for example Lucifer, or X-files, or Bone collectors. -  But unlike those M/M pairings, no one was making fun of people for shipping main characters in these shows. But when it comes to two men suddenly you´ll see from all corners of the internet: “why can´t it be just platonic?” “There is not enough platonic relationships” “why can´t two man just be friends?” (They can and they almost ALWAYS are) and “if you think there something romantic between them, you´re delusional” “fetishist“ “And for god´s sake just let them be friends, Loki needs a friend more then....” oh wait, but Sylvie is allowed to kiss him. Sylvie doesn´t have to be just friend. (And I must say, that I love Sylvie, I liked most of the interactions between her and Loki and I think she is a great character ((I hope we learn more about her in the future)) it just doesn´t work for me as well as Loki´s dynamic with Mobius. Maybe partly because of chemistry between actors, partly because combination of characters and they´re personality and also because I had two whole episodes to fall in love with the pair before Sylvie was even introduced.)

First of all: people can be friends and then evolve into lovers. Not only it is common romantic trope, but it is also the most realistic one. And those relationships are usually strongest. second: If people want to see Loki in a platonic friendship so desperately, why can´t it be a woman for a change? They were acting like chaotic siblings for most of the episode three anyway. The age gap aspect is also very funny. Owen is only about 12 years older (That is not that much. But I imagine, some people would get uncomfortable. But If it was man and woman, most of them wouldn´t even blinked. But two men, that has to be somehow automatically son and father figure dynamic) And If you want to dive into age of an actual characters, then good luck with that in a series about gods, variants and time travel. Almost nobody cares about age gap between Lucifer and detective Decker, or Bella and Edward. On top of that, it was heavily implied, that Loki slept with older, silver haired guy in Ragnarok, so it´s not like he would have problem with that.

Different standards are projected in a way how we see romantic dynamics between fictional characters depends on what we are used to, how are we perceiving world around us, what we are expecting to see and ALSO, what we would like to see, that much is true.  When people are used to make no differences between heterosexual and homosexual pairing, then everything what happens to the characters is measured with the same meter. (Even though I experienced queerbaiting many times (( Once upon a time, Sherlock, Supernatural, Good Omens – the last one hopefully is not the case, but I guess we´ll see)) I also saw lots of lgbt shows like Queer as folks and Sense8.) And when we are not used to see it the same way, well… then it looks basically like that one comment under Castiel´s “I love you” scene on youtube, that said  “what a beautiful friendship”.

If we forget about all that chaotic mess behind the scenes (all those articles and contrary messages)  What is happening in a show between Loki and Mobius can be objectively considered romantic and what is happening between Loki and Sylvie in a series can be objectively considered platonic (until the kiss) and vice versa.  And then to see comments about how absurd it is to even think they have chemistry, and about gay fetish - it´s hard to swallow. I read posts about absurdity of a ship and how there is absolutely nothing that would suggests romance.  Well there is, actually. But whether creators are going to work with it or not, that´s something we can only speculate. They already made Loki officially bisexual. So why should it be so absurd to assume, that there is an actual possibility of romantic subplot between Loki and Mobius? Oh right… it´s Disney and Marvel we are talking about.

So on a subject of bisexuality: Bi people can date whoever they want.  But It is a little frustrating, when there is so many heterosexual pairings in the mcu and disney but when there is a promise of lgbt character (speaking of endgame) we get one line about date from a man we´ll never see again. And when there is a promise of lgbt representation you can´t even blink during movie, or you´ll miss it (Star wars, Beauty and the beast). And then Loki said “A bit of both, I suspect the same as you”. And I won´t lie, I was happy. And I think creators made biggest step yet with this one line (which is honestly terrible, that “a bit of both” coming from Loki of all people, is the biggest step forward.) But they played it VERY safe. Obviously, both Loki, and Sylvie are bisexuals, and in three episodes, we had Loki flirting with female flight attendant, Sylvie talking about her relationship with POSTMAN and then they fall for each other. So the only thing that suggests they are really as bi as Lamentis 1 is that little sentence, that can be edited out, or easily overheard. It´s the bare minimum. And I think that frustration with how freaking slowly we´re moving into some progress is understandable. From all those great M/M dynamics I talked about, those, that could make great love story, nothing happened, because too many people “don´t mind gays but don´t need to look at them” or are scared for their children. In 2021.

It is not a fetish to wish for a gay love story in superhero movies/series. (But anyway, I don´t think there is anything bad about it. Some men like to watch lesbian porn, some woman like to read gay porn. AO3 wouldn´t be were it is today, without people reading and writing slash :D – but that has little to do with what we actually see on tv)

I´m not delusional. As much, as I love these two characters together, I know how little chance it has.  I´m not delusional. I´m just in the future, old and tired, waiting hundreds of years for at least one of my OTP to finaly become a fucking canon.

[arcticdementor]

Sitting on the couch watching TV earlier this month, my wife read to me a headline from her iPhone. “Listen to this,” she said: “There are only 15 lesbian bars left in the entire country.”

“Great,” I said, “We’ll each get our own.”

Lesbian bars have always been vastly outnumbered by bars for straight people and gay men, but in the 1980s, there were more than 200 lesbian bars in the U.S. What happened? Well, a lot of them sucked. The first lesbian bars I went to in my early 20s were dank, smoky caves where women in khaki shorts and backward caps grinded on each other to Outkast. They could have been frat bars if not for the notable absence of men.

…

But there’s something else going on right now, because it’s not just lesbian bars that are disappearing; it’s lesbian as a category itself.

After Portland’s last lesbian bar closed in 2010, as Ellena Rosenthal explored in the Willamette Week, there were attempts to start lesbian-specific nights at various venues, but most avoided the L-word to appear inclusive of trans and nonbinary people. One event, called Temporary Lesbian Bar, apologized after being accused of condoning “trans women exterminationism” for using the labrys — a double-headed ax that symbolizes female strength and has long been a part of lesbian iconography — in their logo. That event still exists (or did before Covid), but the organizers make sure to advertise that, despite the name, it’s “open, inclusive, and welcoming to all people.” (Oddly, these fights only seem to occur around women’s space, not men’s. If gay bars, bathhouses, and clubs go extinct, it will be because of Covid, not because of infighting over inclusion.)

Portland may be a parody of PC, but it’s not an outlier. When I came out in North Carolina in the early 2000s, the term “lesbian” was fading and “queer” was rapidly rising. Most of my peers saw lesbians as stodgy, old-fashioned, and uncool, whereas queers were hip, edgy, and inclusive. Yet “queer” is vague enough to mean nearly anything, so the label says less about your love life and more about your politics. (I propose we all start using the Kinsey Scale instead.)

The flight from “lesbian” has accelerated since. An academic in the Southeast, who asked to remain anonymous, told me that when she mentioned to a colleague that she’s a lesbian, the colleague “reacted like I’d confessed to being a Confederate Lost-Causer. She told me that the term is outdated and problematic, and I shouldn’t use it.” So the lesbian keeps quiet about her identity: “It’s like living in a second closet.”

Not long ago, it would have been the Christian right stigmatizing homosexual women. Today, it’s also from people who call themselves queer.

…

Nonbinary people say that the identification liberates them from the prison of gender, but for others, it doesn’t dismantle gender roles and stereotypes; it reinforces them. It legitimizes the idea that there’s an intractable gender binary in the first place. Instead of saying, “I’m a woman and I reject gender roles,” NB ideology says, in effect, “I reject gender roles and therefore I’m not a woman.”

Joycelyn MacDonald, the editor-in-chief of the lesbian site AfterEllen, has seen the NB ideology pushed by well-intended people and she worries about the unintended consequences. “When we say that femininity is equivalent to womanhood, we leave no space for women, gay or straight, to be gender non-conforming,” she told me. “Butch lesbians especially have fought for the right to claim space as women, and now women are running from that instead of boldly stepping into it. It’s another way of saying ‘I’m not like other girls,’ and it’s demeaning to other women.”

This is not a popular position in some queer communities, and AfterEllen is routinely accused of being transphobic. In 2018, Rhea Butcher, a nonbinary comic, tweeted: “You don’t represent me or my friends and your website is a sham. You’re not a lesbian/bisexual website, you’re a TERF website.” (“TERF" stands for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist” and is not, to put it mildly, a compliment.) Butcher’s tweet is typical, and it’s part of what makes having this conversation so fraught.

There’s been no clear polling on the shift from “lesbian” to “nonbinary,” and so my sense that the lesbian is endangered is purely anecdotal. But there are plenty of anecdotes. After I put out a call on Twitter asking lesbians for input, my inbox filled with emails from women who said vast portions of their friend groups have adopted new labels and pronouns. But none feel like they can openly discuss it, which is apparent by the number who asked to remain anonymous: all of them.

…

Some feminists argue that women are so oppressed in society that opting out of womanhood is a way of opting out of oppression. I’m skeptical. Why didn’t women do this decades ago, when oppression was objectively greater? Besides, enbies are more likely to be Smith undergrads than, say, immigrants getting assaulted at the border.

And there’s another not-so popular explanation: that it’s a fad, a form of social contagion.

I’m aware that this will be offensive to some people. The concept of a fixed, internal gender identity has become sacrosanct, and it’s viewed as something deeply personal and meaningful, like the soul. But humans are social creatures and we are easily influenced by our peers. This isn’t a moral judgment, just a fact, and I’ve seen how it plays out in my own peer circle. First one person comes out as nonbinary, then another, then another, and then one day half the dykes you know go by “they.” Add social media to the mix, and fawning profiles of nonbinary people in the press, and you’ve got yourself a mass cultural phenomenon.

I ran this theory by a therapist who specializes in LGTBQ issues. (She asked to remain anonymous, so I’ll call her Tara.) Tara told me that while the most common complaints of her young female patients involve gender identity, it’s not an issue with older patients. The older ones struggle with their sexuality or their relationships, but aside from a few transexuals with dysphoria, gender identity doesn’t come up. And young women, in particular, are prone to social contagion. We’ve seen this in many areas: eating disorders, cutting, exercising, yawning, strange fits of laughter, and even (forgive the term) hysteria.

When I asked Tara if social contagion could be the cause of the nonbinary movement, she paused for long enough that I thought she may have hung up the phone. “Yes,” she said. “But I can’t really say that to anyone.” The professional risks are too great.

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

When Amazon's version of Good Omens was first unleashed on the masses, a Christian group in America asked thousands of followers to petition Netflix and ask them to cancel the show. Netflix, not Amazon...

Clearly, Return to Order made a mistake of biblical proportions, and we're not just talking about the target of their wrath either.

Listed among their many objections was the show's portrayal of the first humans and the fact that God is voiced by a woman. Funnily enough though, one of the biggest mistakes the group make in this long list of ridiculous statements is their claim that the "angel and demon are good friends".

If the friendship between Aziraphale and Crowley upset them this much, just imagine what they'd think if they realised Good Omens is actually a "love story", as defined by Neil Gaiman himself.

Fans have been shipping the "Ineffable Husbands" ever since Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's book was first published back in 1990. Throughout its six-episode runtime, the show expands on this even further through the chemistry shared by its two leads, Michael Sheen and David Tennant.

Tender moments such as when Aziraphale covers Crowley with one of his wings have led to copious amounts of fan fiction which portray them both as a couple. Sister Mary and even a random passerby make similar assumptions about them at various points on the show. However, attempts to label their relationship as canonically queer are more difficult than they might initially seem.

When asked directly if Crowley and Aziraphale are in a gay relationship together, Gaiman told a fan online that, "They're an angel and a demon, not male humans."

At first, that might seem like a cop-out. After all, the pair are depicted as male, even if they're not in the human sense, and queer baiting is a real issue. Certain scenes in Good Omens certainly read as flirty, and far too often, the LGBTQ+ community are forced to read between the lines or label characters themselves in the absence of overt and meaningful representation.

During a recent interview, we asked Gaiman if he'd considered making this "love story" explicit or more concrete on screen to rectify that. Surely, this would have been the perfect opportunity to canonise these elements of the original text while updating it for modern times?

Gaiman said no, not really, referring back to a line in the book which says, "Angels are sexless unless they specifically make an effort."

He went on to say, "I like the idea that we know Crowley and Aziraphale don't really... these are two ethereal and occult beings who aren't really quite clear on what mammals are about, even. I don't really think that they've sussed complicated human things like gender."

On the one hand, it's easy to see why some fans have interpreted comments like this as an excuse designed to deflect criticism and avoid featuring actual queer characters in the text. However, this particular situation is actually more complicated.

In recent years, a surprising number of authors and screenwriters have declared that their characters are canonically queer, even when there's no mention of it in the original text. JK Rowling is a key offender here, regularly announcing that her books are more diverse than they actually are in a patronising bid to appease the LGBTQ+ community.

Crowley and Aziraphale are more obviously queer than most of these characters who were retroactively altered post-release. Sheen's character in particular is coded with elements of the Victorian Dandy lifestyle which acted as a clear precursor to modern queerness in both fashion and outlook. Still, confirming a sexual relationship between the pair on screen would ultimately rewrite what's considered canon in the book.

That's not to say the pair don't love each other. Gaiman has confirmed more than once that Crowley and Aziraphale are in love, but labels like gay, bi or even pansexual don't quite fit in this instance.

In our interview, Gaiman clarified that their story arc in the show uses "all of the beats of a love story" to make it "purer and more fun".

"Watching them meet, watching the relationship grow, watching the ups and downs of it, watching the huge breakup in the bandstand in episode three, and then watching what happens to them after that."

The idea is that Crowley and Aziraphale don't have sexual desires in the same way humans do because they weren't created for reproductive purposes. Therefore, their love is portrayed as strictly platonic.

Understandably, a number of queer fans have taken offence at this, seeing Gaiman's treatment of these characters as erasure, but comments the author made during a recent Twitter exchange flip that idea on its head entirely.

By saying he "wouldn't exclude the ideas that they are ace [asexual], or aromantic, or trans," Gaiman is actually suggesting that Crowley and Aziraphale could represent areas of sexuality that are all too often ignored both outside and also within the LGBTQ+ community.

Even acknowledging that the ace spectrum exists is rare indeed, and comments from Twitter users below this exchange highlight just how validating this can be. Platonic love can be just as deep as romantic love, so why does sexual desire need to be used as proof that love each other?

Asexual relationships are almost non-existent on screen, so the idea that Crowley and Aziraphale could represent this spectrum is actually far more groundbreaking than people often give Good Omens credit for.

Of course, labels are hugely important and the fight to see them used in this particular context is understandable. However, if Gaiman ever did decide to define the central love story as gay or trans or ace, then that would also trample over other readings which actually mean a lot to more marginalised members of the queer community.

At its heart, Good Omens is all about dismantling binary notions of morality and gender, and however you might want to label them personally, Gaiman has always maintained that Crowley and Aziraphale are in love, no matter what form that might take.

Both the book and the show are undeniably queer in this respect, whichever way you look at it, so this might be the rare instance where it's better to not define what this queerness might entail and instead just celebrate our "heroes" for what they are. Ineffable and in love.

[faakeid]

fab nygmobblepot moments that remind you of kd uwu

OMGGGG AHDAHDUIADHAD

I want to use this moment to be sorry to everyone that follows me but keeps seeing my blog full of Nygmobs/Smaylor instead of kaisoo. I usually don’t get attached to otps like this and it happened in an unexpected way for me. But it’s here and I need to compensate for all the years I didn’t watch Gotham and had no idea about Nygmobs spamming everyone and making my heart warm.

But in general, nygmobblepot isn’t a vision of ideal relationship. Both Edward and Oswald (their surnames Cobblepot and Nygma were the ones who originated this name) are stupid and do stupid shit to each other during most of the series. So, a lot of moments related with the actors counterpart (Robin is the actor who plays Oswald and Cory who plays Ed) reminds me of kaisoo more. But a warning here! Although they have a HUGE chemistry on and off screen, they’re mostly friends. Robin is married for almost ten years so it doesn’t mean their closeness is romantic or sexual. But still, some details remind me of kd.

Similarities with nygmobs:

Height difference: it applies to Smaylor as well because it’s their height but it’s really visible in the series. Cory is a bit taller than JI I think and Robin is like 1.65 but KS is not that taller (I can’t believe he’s 1.73 at all, sorry). But, again, this factor is evident during the series and in some moments and it’s cute.

(the way he moves his feet to reach Ed’s head ;_;)

(when they hug, Oswald barely reaches his shoulders [their hugs are the equivalent to kisses in Gotham])

the closest gif I could find where we can see kd’s height difference without me stealing other people’s gifs.

Penguin reference? That’s pretty obvious. Of course I didn’t start shipping nygmobs because one of them is small and has the Penguin nickname but it made so much easier for me to read some of their fics with kd as characters because they fit the profile so much! And also, I believe KD would totally fit the “murder husbands” couple if someone did a fanfic where they just kill everyone. The closest I remember of a fanfic with this criteria is Juice Pouche where Kyungsoo is a vampire and he protects Jongin and Jongin is kind of badass as well. But the kd fandom needs more fics like this. There’s also “(Before the night is over) come see me” where KS is also a vampire and JI a young werewolf but it focuses more on their relationship than a murder husbands idea Gotham shows so well. 

How they met: Gotham’s history has a lot of differences if you compare with other universes, so keep that in mind. In Gotham, Ed works with GCPD but doesn’t feel like himself with the good side. Oswald is the character that spices things up and is a rage of death and destruction and manipulation. But Oswald is infatuated with Jim Gordon (so isn’t the first time it’s implied Penguin is gay) but he goes to the police department to see him. Ed sees him and wants to talk to him no matter the cost. And he does that... And things don’t end that friendly for him because Oswald thinks he’s a weirdo and asks him to fuck off, basically. It reminded me of kd’s first meeting where KS was the one admiring JI all along but JI get frightned. But, during their second meeting, they bond and become friends. For Nygmobs it takes more time for their second meeting but they end up developing and being in good terms :’)

Their personas, sort of: Ed is the tall one, younger and logic. Oswald is the oldest, smaller and that thinks with his heart. I love how JI could show the more logic side of himself during the last few years and, again, while reading Nygmobs fics using kd names, it was easy to fit the profile for me (that was during the time I wasn’t too deep into nygmobs and I didn’t knok them that well. KS looks cold and deatached and that’s why many people got impressed when he said, during Knowing Bros that he would choose love over friendship. He doesn’t play the part but, considering all the context, it fits him pretty well and reading this description of Oswald made me so familiar because it fits KD well. Ofc I don’t know their private lives and whatever but it’s just the impression I had as a viewer and random person;

Drama issue: when I say drama here, it’s related with how people percieve the two OTPs and how different people visualize LGBT relationship in media. Nygmobblepot had a lot of drama involved because they’re the fucking Riddler and Penguin, two of the most famous Batman villains. People saw them in different sorts of media before and others idolize those characters because of videogames and comics. So, when Oswald mentioned expressedly that he was in love with Edward, it caused an uproar in the fandom. People accused the producers and Robin of messing with the comic canon because the fucking Penguin became gay??? Robin was outspoken about the homophobia behind those statements since he’s a gay man himself but yeah, the drama existed. Part of the people invovled with the series rooted for Nygmobblepot, including some writers and the actors (Cory was the one with ambiguous messages about the nature of their relationship but it’s not even close what happened with other series like Supergirl, Supernatural and Sherlock). But it was aired by FOX, a right wing channel and, as you may imagine, they didn’t become canon per se. Actually, after Oswald said he was in love with Ed and planned on confessing to him, the writers presented a clone of Ed’s ex girlfriend with no explanation and purpose, only to separate them for most part of the series future. After that, some people seemed to have FORGOTTEN Oswald was once in love with Edward, rationalizing many things that are hard to explain with a “bro explanation”, they had a scene where the characters would have evolved even more but it was CUTTED and CHANGED and execs added the sentence “we’re brothers” to make EXPLICIT that Nygmobblepot’s relationship wouldn’t be interpreted as a romance at the end of the series (but, honestly, the actors went for the romance path anyway, the deleted scenes and the final episode can’t convince me otherwise).

What’s related with KD, may you ask? I think you’re familiar with all the drama KD faced since 2016 and how many stuff exploded during that time. How many parts are involved into creating a certain image and shifting it to be appealing and “friendly” is similar with what happens with idols. It’s no secret now about many scandals of bullying and other issues that are considered problematic and how they need to be pushed under the rug for companies so idols can make money and be profitable. Especially for male idols, it’s important that they are viewed as desirable and an object of the fans affections. That’s why he needs to be handsome and kind and look like a person that doesn’t exist. If an idol is openly gay, this person isn’t viewed by the major public with the same interest because they can’t fit the fantasy. That’s why scandals involving idols being gay need to be forgotten and deleted from people’s minds, otherwise that celebrity is ostracized. Although we tend to see the Ocident as “progressive”, there’s similar things happening in that industry. If a celebrity is openly LGBT, they don’t receive certain roles or opportunities because of it. There’s still a huge stigma that needs to be broken and we, as a society, are so far way from it. But recognizing those differences exist it’s a step forward.

Similarities with Smaylor

For me, one of the reasons Nygmobblepot works so well is because of the actors. They portrait a good chemistry because of their friendship off screen and some non verbal signs they display around each other are amazing. Those are things that remind me more of KD as we see them in a lot of moments. So, I wanted space to show those comparisons below:

Mutual admiration: it’s something both Smaylor and KD display a LOT and is extrememly outspoken. I really love watching their old interviews because the affection and admiration is so genuine it makes me drawn to them despite not being romantically involved.

(full gifset)

(there are more moments than these but I don’t want to steal gifs and there’s not much on the gif research and that sucks. Same with KD’s).

Stares and touches: Robin was the responsible for the deep stares and Cory for the random touches. There’s so many gifs of it that is hilarious. It’s like JI divided himself in two cells because we know he’s more known for both >.<

(Cory was touching Robin all the way during this interview rip)

(the gifset!!!)

You’re pretty moment: Robin, like KS, is the one that mentions about Cory/JI’s physical attributes. They have a moment pretty similar and, for KD its famous among shippers:

(gif link)

(actually, Robin called Cory dashingly handsome but its okay)

Cory lost it

There’s another series of gifsets with Robin calling Cory handsome LMAOO

:))))

Synchronization: for specialists in body language, it’s a factor that shows two people are close. That’s because of the mirror neurons we have that makes us copy movements, actions or words that someone we have empathy/we are close with do or say. Both kd and smaylor do this and it’s really soft.

(one of the classics)

(classic 2)

whole gifset (i love this interview so much)

(gif)

The fact the actors came up with their OTP names: people tend to forget that KD’s real otp name (according with Jongin) is dika. Cory also came up with Nygmobblepot name and Smaylor too <3

So, meanwhile Nygmobs has thropies that work a lot with KD AUs, Smaylor has healthy dynamics seen in public appearances KD made. Like I said above, there’s a huge polemic about shipping Smaylor romantically because Robin is married. On social media, is visible he loves his husband and it’s pretty cute to see. Cory himself mentioned that their relationship was sort of a platonic friendship (whatever that means) but it’s really genuine in terms of affections and display of admiration, something KD has as well.

Probably someone will question that it may changed the way I see KD or if now I ship them as bros. Nothing about that changed. With KD, although there are some similar details, there are internal AND external factors that made me support them in a romantic perspective in the first place. And it didn’t change. 

But both of them (Nygmobs too) make me feel that I’m testimoning something genuine, which is really hard in both kpop and media universes. In one side, we have a LOT of fanservice. And, in the other, it’s mostly a work interaction with lots of queerbating. Yes, Gotham has queerbating aspects in it but it’s not full of queerbating, if it makes sense. The message the actors and some writers wanted to convey are there and really display a romantic direction with character evolution and growth. And, considering the way media is nowadays, it’s nice to see.

[im-just-a-random-fandom-girl]

You know what I want?

Domestic Stucky. In Westview. Hear me out.

(First of all, Endg*me can go fuck itself. Steve’s whole thing? Never happened. Forget about it. Wipe if from your mind. We’re rewriting that shit.)

(Also, this isn’t a fic even though I know it starts out looking like one lol. This is just stream of consciousness thoughts. I would put way more effort into actual writing)

The weeks after the final snap were hard. 

Bucky was back, and it felt like every weight that had been dragging Steve down for the past 5 years was lifted. He was mentally and physically exhausted, but his soulmate, his best friend, was at his side again, pulling him into a warm hug, tight and breathtaking. 

It was still hard; Steve was a very different man than he had been 5 years ago, but Bucky was calm and understanding. There was still much to mourn for, too. Tony and Nat were gone. Any sense of stability that had been established during those 5 years was immediately destroyed, and Steve was sure it would take many more years to try to fix the damage.

And Wanda. When Wanda was snapped back into existence, her grief was palpable. What had been 5 terrible years for him had been 5 minutes of bliss for her, relief that she wouldn’t have to try to live in a world without Vision. Steve knew the feeling. Even though he didn’t quite understand Wanda and Vision’s relationship (he was a robot?), he can’t really judge because he’s been pining after his childhood best friend for the better part of a century and still hasn’t managed to do anything about it.

To be brought back to life was the worst trick you could play on Wanda. Her sense of peace was snatched away from her and she was throttled back into a world that had nothing in it for her. Everyone she loved was dead. Her powers still deemed her a threat, even if she had played a crucial role in the fight against Thanos.

Steve wanted to be selfish and just run away with Bucky, but he couldn’t leave Wanda, who had become the little sister he never had.

He worried about her. Even as those who had been snapped away started to come to terms with the fact that 5 years had passed, Wanda wandered around, just a shell of her former self. Sometimes she fell into fits of rage and despair, using her powers to smash everything in her room at the compound or snapping at anyone who tried to distract her. Most of the time she was just blank.

Just a month after the return from the blip, Wanda strolls into the kitchen and announces that she’s going to S.W.O.R.D. headquarters. Steve’s head snaps up. Her eyes are hard and determined, and Steve belatedly realizes that every muscle in her body is tense as she readies herself to fight anyone who tries to stop her. Sam is the first to speak up.

“Okay, kid,” he breathes out nonchalantly, “you need anyone to go with you?” Sam is good like that. Always knowing what to say to make someone feel comfortable and cared about, but not coddled.

“No,” Wanda grits out. A breath, and then, softer, “thank you.”

Glancing around to see if anyone else had any objections, Wanda walks out of the compound.

Steve lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was still holding, but the room is still tense. He whips around to Bucky, eyes wide with concern.

Before he can even say anything, Bucky reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder, “Don’t worry. Come on, we’ll watch out for her.”

So, with a tight smile, Steve stands up and lets Bucky lead the two of them out.

It’s not until they are halfway down the street in an inconspicuous car, trailing a little ways behind Wanda’s red sedan that it occurs to Steve to ask what they’re doing.

“We’re just going to follow her to make sure she’s alright, pal. S.W.O.R.D. has Vision’s body, and it’s not a good idea for her to be alone, even if she thinks it’s best.”

“She’ll be mad if she realizes what we’re doing.”

“Good thing one of us is a reformed Russian spy,” he smirks.

Steve’s heart skips a beat at that familiar face, one that he hadn’t thought he’d ever see again, and blushes, ducking his head. If Bucky notices, he doesn’t say. They carry on in a comfortable silence.

As they pull into the S.W.O.R.D. parking lot, Steve watches Wanda march into the headquarters. He turns to Bucky, "Are we going to follow her in?"

"You can't, that's for sure." Steve scowls. "It's not entirely your fault, pal, but you're don't exactly blend in easily. But I'll go in to keep an eye on her if you want me to."

Steve considers the offer for the moment. As much as he wanted to watch out for Wanda, he knew that if she found out, it would hurt her more. She would think that he didn't trust her, and that he was following her to make sure that she didn't lose control of her powers and hurt people. He didn't want to make her feel more ostracized than she already was.

"No, we'll just wait," he says, shaking his head. His eyes never leave the entrance to S.W.O.R.D. headquarters. 

The wait for Wanda feels excruciatingly long. Steve doesn't trust that S.W.O.R.D. is any better than S.H.I.E.L.D., and he honestly has no idea what they've been doing with Vision's body for the last 5 years. A renewed sense of guilt washes over him.  If he had tried to fight S.W.O.R.D. harder for Vision's body, Wanda wouldn't be here, fighting through her grief to see him one last time. After the snap, Steve didn't feel like he could waste his dwindling energy scrutinizing S.W.O.R.D's every move, but he now wishes he had. He could have spared her this pain. 

Sensing the anxiety bubbling up within him, Bucky reaches out, pulling Steve's hand into his own. "It's not your fault, Steve," he reminds him gently. Steve squeezes his hand in response.

Wanda walks out of S.W.O.R.D. headquarters 20 minutes later. She seems drained and tired, but her expression reveals nothing. They wait again before following her out of the lot.

When she turns right, away from the direction of the compound where he assumed she would return, Steve frowns. "Where is she going? The compound's the other way."

Bucky shrugs. "I guess we'll see."

Steve has no idea where they are until he sees a sign declaring "Welcome to New Jersey!" not far down the highway.

"What the hell is she going to Jersey for?" Bucky gasps, pulling a loud laugh from Steve's chest. It's absurd and ridiculous, but it reminds Steve of when they were kids in Brooklyn, shitting on the Yankees and the state's annoying accent, among the plethora of other abhorrent traits about New Jersey. Bucky starts laughing with him, shaking his head. 

They finally arrive in a small, run-down town called Westview. Steve can't imagine why Wanda would come here.

Her red sedan comes to a stop in front of an empty plot of land, and she steps out, clutching a folded piece of paper to her chest.

"Oh, Christ... Shit," Bucky mutters. Steve is about to ask what he's thinking when he finally sees Wanda's walls crumble. 

Her shoulders shake with the force of her sobs, and she falls to her knees with a cry of desperation. A red orb of her twists around her body and Steve shoves the door to the car open, desperate to get to Wanda. 

"Steve!" he hears Bucky cry out behind him, and it's the last thing he hears before Wanda's powers implode around her, and his vision is blotted with red.

Remember! Wanda made all of her characters in the hex as similar to their actual lives as possible to ease her control of them! SO, it's only natural that her powers would pick up on the fact that Steve and Bucky are very obviously pining for each other and put them in a loving relationship while they are in the hex. Since they are both under Wanda's control, their storyline would happen mostly independently from what we see in WandaVision. I wouldn't have there be any smut (since I'm not talented enough or comfortable writing it myself) so there wouldn't be any non-con or any serious dub-con while they are in the hex. The idea is that both of them want everything that they are made to do (be partners, hold hands, kiss, do other couple-y stuff), but they are concerned because they think the other would feel disgusted and not want it.

There unfortunately were not any gay characters on TV in the 50s and 60s, so I would write these two "episodes" with loose ties to other sitcoms from those decades and do some research into how gay couples lived during these time periods. Basically, reimagine my own 50s and 60s sitcoms with realistic portrayals of a gay couple.

For the other decades, I would then base their relationship off of those actually depicted in sitcoms from that time. 

It should be noted that, while I have actually watch a lot of old sitcoms, I haven't watched many of the ones I mention. If I every decide to write this, I would do a lot more research on these shows (and watch some episodes!)

70's - I would likely draw from Barney Miller, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, and Soap.

80's - Roseanne is pretty iconic, but I would be a little hesitant to write it after all of the controversy a couple years ago. Love, Sidney may also work, but I don't know enough about the show.

90's - Will & Grace, of course! I don't know anything about Northern Exposure, but the little bit of research I've done suggests that also may be a source of inspiration.

2000 through early 2010s - It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Modern Family. (I loved The War At Home, but it doesn't really fit)

When Wanda releases everyone from the hex, Bucky and Steve had some serious miscommunication issues and angst. Both feeling exceedingly guilty about their actions, despite the fact that they had no control over them. They got a taste for what domestic life would be like together, and they are frustrated that they enjoyed it since they believe the other one did not. When Wanda explains that her powers gave everyone jobs, relationships and roles in society that were equally comparable to those they had in real life, Bucky and Steve both realize that the hex would not have put them in a relationship if it wasn't what the other also wanted. Yay! They make-up (and make-out, lol).

I seriously want to write this, but I really don't have the confidence that I will be able to execute it as I imagine it. If someone wants to work on it with me (be it we both write it or you just want to offer some brainstorming help/story guidance), I would be thrilled! Just so long as there isn't any pressure to get it done in a time crunch. I just want this writing experience to be fun! Also, if you are interested, I swear I’m a better writer than what was just exhibited, but I really only spent an hour or so on it, so it’s obviously not my best work.

Anyway, if you have any thoughts, suggestions, advice etc or just want to scream about WandaVision and/or Stucky, please feel free to PM me or stop by my inbox. It would make my day :) 

[fellowstrangetownappreciator]

Playing Favorites (part 1)

...here we are not! Or are we?

Anyways, I’m on a ranting streak and I would like to present you with a verbose post about my favorite TS2 premades and why I love them.

It’s gonna be TOP 3! Or... more like TOP 5! No no no, still too few. TOP 10, maybe?

TOP 15 TS2 Premades (according to my personal tastes on 22. 04. 2021) (not in any particular order)

Erin Beaker (Strangetown)

Erin, the ray of sunshine in the Beaker clan. I headcanon her as a very smart but naive young woman who has just returned to Strangetown after graduating with a psychology degree from the La Fiesta Tech. In a fanfic I’m writing she joined Law Enforcement to put her “psychic powers” to use for “catching bad guys and protecting people” but she quickly becomes disenchanted with the actual police-work and starts her own little “adventure” to uncover the truth behind Strangetown’s most infamous mysterious deaths. In my current gameplay she’s in the Paranormal career.

The slow realization that all of her colleagues are scam artists and she might not have any powers either, almost destroyed her. But she didn’t give up. Yes, she may not have “powers” yet but that doesn’t mean she is not going to obtain them. And oh boy, she is. She builds ties with other residents, building her influence, collects skills and rare magical objects and travels a lot to understand and obtain mythical knowledge.

It’s not like she’s building a cult! It’s not how it looks, I swear! She’s way too nice to be a cult leader!

...she’s totally building a cult, although she doesn’t realize it yet.

I love Erin because she is a very flexible Sim. I find it very engaging to play a Sim that has such a different set of beliefs to mine. (Erin would be an anti-vaxxer and a user of essential oils and healing crystals, let’s accept the painful truth.) She also has a very interesting implied dynamics with her brother and with the rest of the Singles squad. She starts with a moderately low relationship with Chloe and it’s always interesting to see where it leads.

In conclusion: High intelligence, low wisdom queen.

Ripp Grunt (Strangetown)

There is something extremely relatable about Ripp. For me it’s the mystery of them growing up badly both toddler-to-child and child-to-teen, despite having been taught all toddler skills and their parents being still together and their mother still being alive. I read that as them struggling with depression since early childhood.

Maybe their parents’ relationship was already in a terrible shape when they were a small child and that’s the reason for their suffering? But Tank and Buck both grew up well under the same conditions which would indicate that there were more issues young Ripp was facing.

As you probably noticed, I headcanon Ripp as being too cool for the gender binary, using both he/him and they/them pronouns.

Anyway, there are many reasons to like Ripp. They stand up against their family’s xenophobia, violent nature and militarism. Having highest relationship with Buck out of the whole family, it is implied they’re a caring older sibling. Also, they’re framed as the underdog in the household, the trademark black sheep of the bunch who is never good enough, and are being actively mistreated by their emotionally distant macho father and physically abusive older brother.

Because of their amount of nice points and their rebellious nature (social conventions what?), I always play Ripp as polyamorous. They’re a Romance Sim, therefore they simply won’t be satisfied with just one partner in the long run but a wholesome consensual non-monogamy simply suits them better than the cheating bonanza Romance Sims often initiate, at least in my interpretation of the character. Let me just enjoy that and not think too much about the fact that since they grew up poorly two times, their life is probably going to be a relatively short one.

In conclusion: Have I mentioned that Romance is my second favorite aspiration?

Vidcund Curious (Strangetown)

Yes, him.

Vidcund is a very unpredictable Sim. He tends to cause a lot of trouble (3 nice points...) and generally sails through life being a jerk. But... A scientist? Unpopular? Cranky? Eccentric? That’s my kind of jerk.

You see, Vidcund’s not your average plant-loving conspirator, he has another side. He has a hidden Family token which makes him act a bit more Family Sim-ish. As a result of that, Vidcund tends to be a very attentive and protective father/uncle.

In my current gameplay, I gave him Family as a secondary aspiration to even strengthen this trait of his. It had mostly positive results but it did make him seem and act even more lonely.

I find Vidcund relatable even though I’m almost his exact opposite personality-wise. Maybe it is because I project my own autistic traits onto him? Maybe it is because he stands out like a sore thumb everywhere he goes (both fashion-wise and in behavior) and no matter what he does he always comes off a bit silly and somehow vulnerable?

I also love how if Strangetown is your main hood, if a Sim uses a telescope during the day anywhere in the game world, Vidcund makes the effort to travel there just to lecture them. It’s like a “Summon Vidcund” spell!

In conclusion: Playing Vidcund Curious is good for my soul.

Jill Smith (Strangetown)

In the shadow of her very popular brother, there is a little girl that will surely conquer the world someday.

Don’t worry, I love Johnny as much as the next person but my favorite member of the household is his little sister, Jill.

She has a vision. A very ironic one, given that she dreams about working with the sea creatures one day while living in the farthest possible place from the ocean but... if it’s ironic, it’s iconic.

Although she does have a token (Popularity) which makes her a bit more unique, there isn’t that much to the actual canonical portrayal, given that she is a small kid when you first play the Smiths and she has little going on for her aside of what is described in her bio. I mean, almost all kids act like they had a Popularity token anyway, the Grow Up aspiration is full of friend-making and socialization in general. But!

What she lacks in the Maxis character-building department, she makes up for in the sheer potential of what you could do with the character.

A human-passing half-alien hybrid who is, moreover, a member of the (in)famous scientist clan (...that what the Curious’ deserve to be)! She has the perfect balance of interesting and peaceful to be that Sim you can do anything with.

In my personal gameplay, she grew up to a teen and I chose Knowledge as her aspiration. She is friends with several stray animals, including the pack leader, so maybe there is a werewolf transformation in her future. She also rolled gay. She’s my laid-back lesbian disaster that knows more about the animal kingdom than pretty much anybody else in Strangetown, takes splendid care of her fish, hopelessly crushes on Lucy Burb and I love her to bits.

In conclusion: She deserves all the love and a career in Oceanography when she’s grown up.

Also, this post is getting massive even for my standards so I’ll cut it here and do the list in several parts.

[longinglook]

I may or may not have spent my entire Sunday binge watching all of I told sunset about you and Gaya sa pelikula and now I have so many thoughts and feelings that I need to write about them so here we go! Under a read more (if tumblr allows me to) because it’s 2k words hehe

First of all, I knew next to nothing about both shows before starting them. I had seen a couple of gifs here and there, but really had no idea what I was in for.

I started with I told sunset about you, which has 3 episodes out of 5 out. All I knew is that it was going to be beautiful and possibly sad, and it was. Everything about this show is so high quality, from the audio to the dialogue to the locations to the acting, just wow. The production is better than a lot of movies I’ve seen, and every technical aspect is perfect. I am really loving the plot so far as well, I find the childhood friendship to stubborn rivalry to grown up friendship again very relatable. I think it’s a very common experience for a lot of non straight folks to develop an extremely close bond with a same sex friend when you’re too young to realize what you’re actually feeling for them until you’re a lot older and suddely the jealousy and possessivenes all make sense.

I love the recurring themes sprinkled throughout the episodes, starting from the chinese vocabulary that expresses the core thoughts of the two main characters: rival, intimacy, secret, male protagonist, as promised. They could easily be the episode titles, or the names of imaginary sections the show could be divided into. It’s a great way to integrate metaphors and deeper meaning into the plot.

That’s how most of the communication goes in this show, deep emotions are never conveyed through words because words are scary and loud and they can’t be taken back once they’re out there. The plot advances though stares and gestures and touch and gorgeous shots of the landscape. The pace is slow with hour-long episodes that could each be a movie of their own. This worried me a bit before starting, and I have to admit that at times I struggled to stay focused, especially during scenes that set the mood but don’t do much plot-wise. This is just a personal preference, though, and in no way I see it as a flaw. 

The dancing around each other the main characters do, sometimes literal, is frustrating but it determines an emotional build up that’s just starting to reach its peak. This is one of those shows that has me screaming if only they talked to each other, but the silences and unspoken words are so well directed and acted that it works. I struggle a lot with keeping in mind that they’re still in high school, they’re very young and I can’t expect them to act rationally just yet. 

I was really worried about Teh possibly going the insufferable Theory-of-love-khai way, and I am still not 100% sold on him. When he started helping Oh-aew again it felt like he was just doing it to make himself feel better about the whole thing. It was frustrating to see him so possessive and jealous while also so deeply in denial about his own feelings, to the point where he had me rooting for Bas instead. He was getting better, but then he fled at the end of episode 3 and now I have no clue what’s going to happen next. About this, I really have no idea if they’re going for a happy ending or a sad one. I’m really hoping it will be good, because so far there has been barely any emotional payoff for all the repressed longing and misunderstanding the show has put us through.

I do like their dynamic a lot though, I have a weak spot for childhood friends reconnecting and an ever weaker spot for informal mentor/mentee relationships. Oh-aew asking Teh to tutor him until he passes the admission exam was an almost exact mirror of Yuri on ice Yuri begging Victor to be his coach until he retires and I loved that a lot.

Now on to the one issue I have with this show: it feels too much like an art film. It reminds me of Moonlight and Call me by your name, in the way that I wasn’t able to connect with those movies because they are too perfect. They are so beautiful and carefully crafted that I can’t fully immerse myself in them. There’s a filter that stops me from relating to the characters and constantly reminds me that this is not reality. It’s pretty, it’s extremely well done, but it feels like art. It has some quirks, some scenes that feel too artificial. One scene in particular, the one where Teh buries his head in the paper Oh-aew wrote with his coconut scented pen to sniff it, which is a direct parallel to Call me by your name, bothered me in particular. Just as it felt over-the-top and purposefully weird in the movie, so it feels in the show. It’s a way of showcasing how a confused teen deals with attraction he barely understands, it’s raw and animalistic in a way, but it’s so quirky that all it accomplishes is to remind me that I’m watching an lgbt show. It makes me wonder if a scene like this would make sense in a straight relationship because here it seems to highlight how different and primal his attraction is. If I had to pinpoint it, I’d say that I have a problem with media showcasing queerness though peculiar, purposefully awkward scenes like these instead of normal kissing and cuddling.

Overall, I can’t wait to see how this show ends and I still think it’s one of the best bls to air in 2020, if not ever. It’s refreshing to see something with a big budget used well! So far my rating is 8/10, which I know is a lot lower than what everyone else seems to think but it’s still very much subject to change! Just hoping they won’t pull a Make our days count, but I doubt they’ll go there.

And now Gaya sa pelikula. Wow. Again, I knew next to nothing about this show before watching, and I was coming from a 3 hour I told sunset about you binge watch, so the bar was pretty high.

And boy, did this show deliver. I was blown away by the depth and the humor of it. It feels like the writers had fun taking all sorts of common tropes and stereotypes just to show everyone how well they can be evolved and made complex. Two strangers who somehow find themselves sharing an apartment sounds like the start of so many fanfictions out there, but it’s so well executed and interesting that you don’t even stop to think about how weak the premises for their meeting are. It doesn’t matter and it’s not even that far-fetched, either. The sister and the neighbor are also two characters that start off as extra stereotyped, but in just a few scenes they unveil an incredible depth and backstory. It blew me away.

Each character is so realistic. Everything they do and say makes sense, they all have their reasons and their past and they react accordingly, it’s so coherent. It’s impressive how everything takes place inside the house and you barely realize it because things happen and the plot moves anyways, and the way information about external events and people is conveyed is so seamless that you don’t even notice it. In only 7 episodes (so far) they have managed to give everyone a complex background and personality through the use of objects and small details and wow don’t get me started on the music.

The soundtrack is SO GOOD. I never really pay attention to music in shows but it plays a very important role here in my opinion and, well, it’s exactly the kind of music I like listening to and ahhh I just spent 4 hours playing the first kiss song on loop so I might be biased. Right from the start in episode 1, when Karl gives in to Vlad’s music and starts dancing to it, it’s established that it’s an important element to the mood of each scene. I love how the dancing I talked about for I told sunset about you comes back here, but while I saw it as a hesitant dancing around each other there, here it’s the opposite, it’s freeing and it’s about accepting yourself. And the end of episode 6 highlights this, with the beautiful quote “You are entitled to a love that lets you dance without fear and shame.” It made me cry a looooot.

I think the development of their relationship is masterfully done. It doesn’t happen too quickly nor too slowly. Karl goes through some needed shocks that act as his wake up call. When I’m watching bl shows I care the most about them feeling real and relatable. I don’t want to feel like they were written by a straight person trying to guess what it’s like to be gay. Now I didn’t look anything up about the Gaya sa pelikula writers, but I’d be very surprised if they were straight. I can relate to both Karl and Vlad for different aspects of their stories and their worries and thoughts. There was one part in particular that hit so close that I had to take a few breaks because it hurt too much. I am a lesbian, I’ve had relationship with a girl that lasted over a year, I am out to some friends but not all. I never came out to my parents, who are both very open minded and friends with a lot of gay people and would love me just as much if I told them, and yet I can’t. It’s not just that, I am terrified by the idea of them already knowing or being able to guess. When Karl freaked out over his uncle guessing, it hit me so hard because I’ve felt the same way so many times.

Episode 7 was amazing. I hate badly written drama the most, and 99% of shows can’t come up with any good reason for drama but they have to put it in there anyways and it sucks. This was the complete opposite, I adored it and I say this as a lover of fluff. It feels right, I think it’s an issue that would come up between two people like them. They are both right and the only thing that could happen there is what actually went down. I definitely think things will be fixed by the end and I am looking forward to it, but I am very glad this issue was included because it’s so important and so true to many lgbt people’s lives.

Another aspect I absolutely adored are the multiple references to lgbt theory and language, and Vlad has some of the best lines I’ve ever heard coming from a bl. When he tells Karl not to be afraid of the word, when he explains that “you don’t look gay” isn’t a compliment, when he scolds his sister for not acknowledging the things she used to say to him by covering them up with her ally act, those are all such important and educative moments that I hope everyone listens to. I love that Vlad is not correcting some ignorant bad guy, but it’s his accepting and loving friends and family that make the mistakes, because sometimes being supportive your own way isn’t enough if you’re not actively learning from the ones you want to support.

This is a 10/10 for me right now. I can’t find anything I don’t like about it. It never feels boring, it never feels overdone, it never feels cheap or unoriginal. It went straight to the top of my favorite bls.

And now I can’t help but compare the two a bit, because yes they are two different shows but right now the relationships they portray have reached the same point: there has been a climax and now the one who is more confused about his sexuality is panicking and taking a step back. It’s a coincidence that I watched both shows on the same day when their last aired episodes end in such a similar way, but it really leads me to compare the two. I don’t want to put them one against each other or say which one did it better because that’s not the point of this, they are both two amazing and important shows who are excelling in what they’re doing. 

Gaya sa pelikula is down to earth, it’s explicit and it’s straight to the point in explaining what’s going on inside each character’s head. It feels like watching real people deal with real struggles. I told sunset about you is a lot more subtle and quiet, and since we don’t really have a clear insight in the characters’ heads sometimes it’s hard to completely understand what’s going on with them. It’s a completely different way of narrating, and while Gaya sa pelikula makes me feel like I’m a part of the events, I told sunset about you feels like I’m just spectating from an outside perspective. They are different choices, but one of them ends up feeling a lot more emotional to me than the other.

To wrap it up, I highly recommend both shows and I can’t wait to see how they’ll end! They are both among the best shows of the year, both free of all those annoyingly stereotyped characters and plot points that most bls tend to overuse.

[sebastianshaw]

Gud morning folks. For new followers, on Munday I just do a random dump of OOC rambles that have nothing to do with Shaw or this blog. Under the cut is stuff about animals, my suspicions of the “mean lesbian” Tumblr trope, and how I don’t have a Spotify but what my list would be if I did:

- I really, really miss riding horses. I get the occasional trail ride once or twice a year, but I want to do more than just sit there on a walk through the woods. I want to actually RIDE again, like actually DO THINGS---trot, turn, canter, maybe even jump. I miss it a lot. - I’m very proud of my chinchillas and how well-socialized they are! They’re friendly to strangers, and will try to go to not only my dad, but also my mom and sister when I hold them near them. Chinchillas are very timid animals, hard to win over, and typically bond with only one person, so this is really awesome for them! - Fun fact about me, I am the most timid little person in public. I am lowkey terrified of people and always ready to bolt when I’m alone. I still go out and get a soda and stuff, just I’m very high-alert and I’m super non-confrontational. I basically have the same defense as an opossum, in that I try to be as contrite and apologetic as possible to avoid trouble. But when I am out with a female friend, I just go like, full guard-dog mode internally. I’m completely ready to fight the fuck out of anyone who bothers her. I had mostly forgotten this about myself because I’ve been in quarantine so long, but when I went to see my friend this month and we went walking the dogs in a dark park with no one else around, I was like, I will absolutely kill someone tonight if I have to.  - I’ve been having rat anxiety dreams again. Basically scenarios in which I fail to take care of my rats and they suffer/die for it, or there’s too many rats to take care of at once :C - I have made jokes about being a “mean lesbian” myself because of how I rag on any male fave I have, or how I just don’t give a shit about the dudes everyone else in fandom/tumblr/etc is apeshit over, but like. . .I feel like the Tumblr invention of the phrase “mean lesbian” is ultimately couched in very heteropatriarchal stereotypes around lesbians. Because it case you didn’t know, lesbians have typically been represented as extremely unpleasant in media for a long time; positive rep for us is pretty new. The lesbian in media is invariably a man-hating, penis-envying shrill feminist strawman (usually overlapping with the “no-fun feminist who thinks everything is sexist and all men are evil” stock character) or, at best, a laughable object of disgust for her gender-nonconformity, her ugliness, her fatness, her short hair, her non-sexual attire, all the things that make her unattractive to men and therefore both useless and a walking insult to them.  And this animosity towards lesbians, and depictions of us as horrid two-dimensional viragos who are just angry and mean all the time, comes from the patriarchal assumption that not being interested in men means hating them, because, as I’ve noticed for a long time, cis men just can’t fathom DISINTEREST in them, nor can society in general. They can’t IMAGINE that a woman just DOESN’T CARE about them one way or the other, we HAVE to be OBSESSED with them in SOME way, even if that way is hating them. That’s why SO MUCH of the perception of lesbians I encounter from people, or the questions I’ve gotten pertaining to being gay, is seldom focused around asking why I find women attractive, but on asking why I DON’T find men attractive. Because, as women, our sexuality MUST be focused around (cis) men, even if the focus is rejecting them; they can’t just be a non-issue to us. And, of course, that rejection cannot be “I’m just not into bros, bro” but an active seething EVIL HATRED. We must DESPISE them. And we’re BAD for that. We’re MEAN. As is ANY woman who, say, has turned down any man ever, or who has the mildest of issues with even the most egregious sexism, hence why feminists are always depicted as shrieking harpies who flip out over absolutely absurd shit, rather than ever having anything resembling an actual point about a real issue. We’re just MEAN, man! And that makes us easy to dismiss. Along with all the uncomfortable truths we draw attention to. See also: Angry Feminist, Angry Black Woman, etc. Maybe I’m reaching, but much like all the gross stuff that Tumblr has made around tops and bottoms that is just sexism 2.0 (pretty much every stereotype about bottoms is a stereotype about women, it’s just seme and uke all over again) I don’t think that the “mean lesbian” thing came out of nowhere with no basis in anything previous. I think it’s absolutely got sexist af roots, or at least very well could, even if people, including lesbians, are using it affectionately now.  - I once told a friend that Artemis and Athena were my favorite Greek deities as a kid and she said “no one is surprised”

… yeah, yeah that’s fair -  I don’t have Spotify, but here’s a playlist Youtube made for me based on what I listen to most there: Winterborn by The Cruxshadows Rasputin by Turisa Wolves Without Teeth by Of Monsters & Men City of Night by Miracle of Sound King & Lionheart by Of Monsters & Men Still by Alanis Morissette Sophia by The Cruxshadows Nothing I Can Do by Dreams in the Witch House - A Lovecraftian Rock Opera Rammstein vs Lady Gaga - Du Hast vs Telephone mashup All the Myths Are True by Abney Park I Don’t Know How To Love Him from Jesus Christ Superstar Reverent of Rats by Powerwolf Temple of Love by The Sisters of Mercy Blinding by Florence + the Machine Eye To Eye from Disney’s “A Goofy Movie” by Jonathan Young Come With Me Now by Kongos Airship Pirates by Abney Park Like A Prayer metal cover by Jay Smith The Hype by 21 Pilots She Sells Sanctuary by The Cult Plush by Stone Temple Pilots Beast of Gevaudan by Powerwolf The Tale of Cu Chulainn by Miracle of Sound I Like Giants by Kimya Dawson Birdhouse In Your Soul by They Might Be Giants